Diverging Roads
by Nynaeve506
Summary: Trapped in a universe not her own, Sam Carter confronts the painful reality of her alternate self and alternate Jack O'Neill. Canon-friendly. S10 "Road Not Taken


_A/N: Former readers from here may have noticed most of my stories have disappeared. They are all publicly available on "archive of our own dot org (slash) users (slash) Nynaeve" (remove the spaces). I don't know if I'll be as faithful updating here, but I'm putting up some of my T or lower rated stories and just recommend you check my complete collection on AO3. Peace out._

_Original Pub Date: 4/17/2011_

_A/N2: Written for the lovely canadianfolk who won my auction for the Japan Relief Aid auction on LiveJournal. She requested S/J. While having viewed "Road Not Taken" isn't necessary, it will probably help. Thank you to the ever-wonderful Akamaimom for her beta skills. Read, review, but as always, enjoy._

The night air was warm and to Sam it felt like sweet relief. Three days she'd been locked up, subjected to intense scrutiny by people that wore the mask of her friends but who were entirely strangers. Major Samantha Carter was her façade and in a sickening twist, she was the imposter. A light breeze caressed her skin and she absently rubbed her arms as she glanced up to the dark sky. The same stars. The same trees. The same world. The same threat.

Yet it wasn't home.

"You're relieved, I'll watch her from here," Lorne said, coming up behind Sam. The guard that had wordlessly escorted her to the surface retreated and the crunch of the Major's boots neared her. So much for even the pretense of solitude.

"I know. I know. I'll get back to the calculations soon. I just needed..." she sighed and shrugged. "I needed something."

He nodded. "Yeah. I know."

"I don't belong here."

"I know that too."

Sam leveled her blue eyes at him, the light from a streetlamp reflecting and giving her an ethereal presence. "Then why won't you let me go?"

"We will. I promise," he answered, holding his hands out, palms up. "We need this favor. Wouldn't you do anything you could to save your world?"

"I _am_ doing everything I can. I'm trying to get home," she shot back. "Every minute I'm here, every minute...those are minutes _you_ are stealing from _my_ world."

"_Borrowing_. Besides, whatever you find out here will probably aid in your own fight. It's not a one or the other proposition here," Lorne countered, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Hammond knows what he's doing, but he's got a nation to defend too."

"What does it matter if we're nothing more than means to an end?" she muttered. "Hammond, _my_ Hammond, upholds the freedoms, fights for the freedoms of everyone. I can't even fathom where our universes diverged to create any of this. No one is who I expected them to be."

Sam chewed on her bottom lip and stared out at the entrance of the mountain. After going through the list of those she immediately worked with, she'd stopped. She knew what had almost happened to _him_ before the Stargate program. She knew how many near rescues were one butterfly flap of never going to happen.

"You seemed really weirded out earlier about your...her...ex-husband," Lorne broached gingerly. "I'm not trying to be nosy, I was just surprised. You know, the whole multi-dimensional-universe thingy got me thinking about fate and who you end up with."

"I hope this is the only universe I ended up married to McKay," she said and her eyes went wide as she realized what she'd revealed. "He's really smart and he has his moments but I'm not sure..."

Lorne looked uncomfortable for a second before clearing his throat. "It was a sham."

"What?"

"The marriage. It was a sham. I shouldn't be telling you this but then, I guess our...you is dead," he replied not clarifying much more. Sam stared at him and he uttered a curse under his breath. "Sam had an affair with her commanding officer at the time. I don't know when it all started, early, but the looks they shared were intense. I think she started a relationship with McKay to cover it up but when the lid blew, it broke the guy's heart."

Even in the moonlight, her skin appeared paler than usual. "Her commanding officer, was...was his name O'Neill?"

"Yes," Lorne answered and he frowned as the connection dawned on him. "Oh. You. Oh."

"We never. Not while I was under his command," she defended. "I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I was that cold-hearted."

Putting a hand on her shoulder he stepped forward. "To be fair, I don't think she meant it to be that way. It was a strange union to begin with. A lot of people didn't get it which is why the divorce didn't come as any major shock."

Suddenly the night felt stifling and the black expanse of the sky seemed to threaten to swallow her whole. Sam closed her eyes and willed the bile in her throat back down. What broken looking glass had she fallen through? She'd had an inkling that such universes could exist after her experience with the multiple Sam Carters over a year ago, but being slapped in the face with decisions she couldn't begin to fathom having made...

"I think I'm ready to go inside now."

"Are you sure? There's no rush, well not the kind that a few more minutes will affect."

She shrugged off his hand and gave him a weak smile. "I want to get home as soon as possible. The sooner I help you, the sooner I get to leave." Then she hastily passed him and headed back towards the mountain. She didn't even glance at any of the soldiers who saluted her on the way in. It was all a lie anyway.

Sam hunkered down in the lab and didn't even consider another jaunt outside. A full day passed, and then another, the pressure was palpable from all directions. Her first simulation had been a bust, as had been the second, but by the third...well, Sam had hope. Hope that she would survive the ordeal. If she survived, she had a shot at making it home.

Her eyes drifted to the phone on the other side of the lab. Lorne's words during their private moment in the mountain air had sat in her stomach like a lead weight. She should have been content to let sleeping dogs lie, but she was curious by nature. There was a desperate need to try to understand the woman whose life had been lost. The forever incomprehensible sense of the "other" nagged her, whispering to her when her mind was too tired to silence it. Twice she'd given in and dialed the numbers _she'd _known as Jack's number. The shock of actually getting his voicemail forced her to hang up quickly.

"Major? Er...Colonel...Carter."

Bill Lee's voice made her look up from her laptop and give him a weary smile. "Bill."

"I think you need to see these numbers. I know why we're coming up short and I can't believe we missed it," he said with a resigned sigh. He dropped his pad of paper next to her and Sam frowned.

"Damn."

He frowned. "My thoughts exactly."

"I'd better go see General Hammond."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The Ori came. In surprise move, President Landry (Sam still struggled with the thought) had managed to requisition enough electricity from the US power grid so that they could run Merlin's device. In the end it had relied as much on physics as a hope and a prayer, but they did it. Earth was successfully phased out of the same dimension as the Ori ships, and she was free to finally start working on going home.

Almost.

"Just come to the dinner. You've been hard at work and you need a night off. It's not everyday you save the planet," Landry had insisted without really looking for her input or opinion. Sam had wanted to retort that with her position it had become an annual event to save the world. She bit her tongue, though, because he held all the cards. She hated that she couldn't trust the man who wore her commanding officer's face.

Dinner had been a whirlwind and Landry had played stupid (she knew he wasn't). The protester however, had left her shaken. Sam had been gone a full week and while she never completely forgot that she wasn't home, seeing the painsticks used on an American citizen was a jarring shock to her system. She had to get home.

Jack.

It was the only name that kept coming back to her. Fear washed over her anew every time she gave the thought to calling him any sort of play in her mind. Instead she settled for Rodney. He was brilliant and in her world he'd been attracted to her at the very least. If she had understood everything correctly from Lorne, McKay was still in love with her in this permutation of reality.

She'd taken a cab to Rodney's mansion (it was really too ostentatious for her tastes) and thought she'd convinced him, until she got back and her equipment was gone.

Every avenue she tried, _they_ fought back. Sam felt fire course through her veins at the way they tried to keep her trapped, to play their game. Jack was the ace up her sleeve except she wasn't sure what game they were playing. The empty lab gave her the strength to pick up the phone, one more time, and try the number she'd tried twice before.

Her fingers trembled over the numbers. Her breathing hitched as it rang.

"O'Neill," the gruff voice answered.

She couldn't speak. Her voice was caught in her throat and she almost hung up except that his voice seemed so _him_ and so much like _home_.

"For crying out loud..." he muttered.

"Wait," she blurted into the earpiece, not wanting to give up her only slim thread to all that she knew. "It's...it's me."

"Sam?" There was a disbelief to his tone that stung, but she recited to herself the mantra that as much as he sounded like the Jack she knew, and loved, that it wasn't him. That it wasn't _her_ Jack O'Neill on the other end. Even so...

"Yeah."

"Not that I don't like that you called except that, you know, you never call," he started and she managed a weak grin despite herself because it was something _he_ would say. "Why are you calling?"

Her head was muddled as she listened to his voice. She could almost smell him, that musky scent imbued with the summer breeze and sunscreen. If he was even half the man her own was, he would help her. His honor would allow no less.

"Something's happened. You need...I need you to come," she rushed, hating her deception, wondering if he still loved her, and praying that it wouldn't devastate him when he learned the truth.

There was a pause. Her request was unexpected and from the way he was responding it was apparently out of the blue. Perhaps she'd miscalculated. Then Jack sighed. "I never could say no to you. I'll be there."

The phone went dead and Sam was left feeling empty. With regret and guilt, she hung up the phone and went back to her desk. She had saved a world though she wasn't certain she wouldn't destroy it in the process.

o-o-o-o-o-o

The beds seemed the same. That was a blessing, Sam supposed as she undressed and burrowed down into the rough white sheets. After her meeting with McKay and the rude realization that these people were not going to let her go home, she'd fought tooth and nail with anyone she could get to listen. Hammond had finally ordered her to her room or risk being dragged there. That's when she knew she'd hit the wall, so she stepped back.

That had given her hours to think about what she'd done in calling Jack. Would there be a gentle layer underneath his brusque and sarcastic personality? Her own counterpart's betrayal of her vows and her oaths had blindsided her and created a tiny seed of self-doubt. With those thoughts swirling in her mind, she'd fallen asleep and dreamt of faceless friends and nameless enemies.

"Hey," said the unexpected familiar voice, stirring her from the deep slumber she'd fallen into. Her heart stopped.

"Jack," she whispered and she opened her eyes, more alert. "Jack."

Sitting up she was surprised to see him sitting in a chair across from her in jeans and an untucked flannel shirt. Had she been so exhausted that she hadn't heard him enter? Was her mind so attuned to him that even a copy didn't send warnings through her to wake her up? She pushed aside the fog of dreams to focus on the intruder. There was a sadness in his eyes that put her off her guard, but she reminded herself that this wasn't him. Yet it was him. He looked like him, even with the same scruffy five o'clock shadow that hers tended to grow with anything more than a two day vacation.

"Relax. I know you're not from around her," he told her with a wave of his hand. He sat forward. "Is it true?"

"Yes. I'm from another universe and the Sam you knew is..."

"Dead."

Her shoulders slumped. "Yes."

"Figures."

He stood up and started towards the door.

"Wait," she called, flipping back the covers. She was wearing just her BDU shirt and her panties and while she should have been embarrassed, she wasn't. "Wait. Please."

He turned and faced her, no look of hurry or concern. He just...stood there.

"They won't let me go home. I was hoping that maybe you had an in or something. Or you knew someone. Or anything. You're my last chance."

His jaw twitched, the only indication on his stoic visage that he was angry, perhaps even furious. "What? You thought just because I fucked this Sam Carter that I'd be eager to help you out?"

"No...that's not what I thought at all..."

"They passed her over for promotion because of our relationship. She played the good girl gone astray while I hung out to dry. They used her against me. When I argued against the loss of our rights, our God-given rights, they exposed us and then gave us a choice. I walked away. She stayed. She made her choice," he spat.

"Jack, listen, please. I don't know why she did what she did, but I'm not _her_ and right now I have a world that isn't like this one that needs to be saved," she pleaded vainly. Jack was a hard man and his eyes glinted like steel.

He clenched and unclenched his fist before scrubbing his hand over his face. "I don't know what you expect me to do. They forced me into retirement and I barely got a pass to get into the mountain. I don't even have as much clout as one of those fresh faced lieutenants out there," he explained softly, dropping his gaze to the floor.

"Surely Hammond...maybe...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this to you," she apologized lamely.

He glanced up at her. "You two in your world...are you...?"

"Yeah," she affirmed with a shy nod. "We're together."

"I can't make any promises."

"I trust you."

He seemed to drink her in with his eyes one last time before slipping out the door, leaving her in the poorly lit room. If anyone could help her, she was certain he would.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Cam had been next on her list and Sam thought she was going to vomit when she saw him. She channeled her disgust, her fury, and her sorrow into plan. Now she was back in her room, prepping for an interview. The uniform didn't fit quite right; somehow her hips seemed just a tad wider than the Sam that she was supposedly replacing. At least the jacket covered the pulls enough that no one would notice and she certainly didn't plan on being around long enough to need a skirt in her own size.

There was a knock at her door and she tried not to look disappointed when Lorne walked in and not Jack.

"You shouldn't have called him," he commented, holding out a box.

She flipped them open and found a pair of silver oak leaves. "Oh. My 'promotion'."

"Are you listening?" Lorne said in an exasperated tone. He took the box back and took out the pins. Carefully he replaced the gold leaves on her shoulders. "O'Neill isn't exactly considered a shining example of the United States Air Force."

"And I am?"

"You saved the world," he argued. "He threw a hissy fit when the president declared martial law."

"Doesn't _anyone_ see what's going on here? Who cares what you're fighting for if there's nothing left?" she insisted, pulling back, leaving her companion still holding one of the insignias. "A life without freedom isn't worth living."

"We'll fix that part later. The important piece is that we're alive."

Sam relented as Lorne moved to put the other leaf on her shoulder. "I was out of options. I _am_ out of options."

"Colonel O'Neill can't be one of them. It's courtesy that he as access to the mountain."

Her icy stare cooled the room by at least ten degrees. "The man is a hero. Despite his and your Carter's lack of discretion it doesn't lessen the fact that they have pulled this planet's ass out of the fire time and time again. If he's even a glimmer of the man I left behind..."

Holding his hands up, he took a step back. "I get it. I get it, Sam. I'm trying to protect you and I'm on your side with all of this. I don't want you to get thrown out on the street, or worse, when they figure out you won't play ball. If there's one thing about O'Neill's reputation it's that once he gets his teeth sunk in, he doesn't let go."

"That's exactly what I'm counting on."

Brushing by him, Sam walked out the door into the corridor. She forced the smile, she squared her shoulders, and she knew she looked the part of a distinguished Air Force officer. The reality was that Lorne's chat had created doubts. Jack hadn't shown up since their talk and she hadn't experienced any real backlash. Maybe he'd had second thoughts and jumped on the next plane back to Minnesota. Did he even have a cabin in Minnesota? If he had been her own Jack, her faith would have been unwavering, but this Jack...

_Discretion_.

Slipping into the car she settled in and steeled her nerves. Discretion was the very thing she was throwing to the wind. The primary difference between what Sam Carter McKay had done and her own actions lay in the fact that she was trying to get herself _home_ and save six billion lives. Ever the scientist, she mulled the variables in her mind. Could she have _ever _made an argument to let herself break the regulations to be with Jack?

The car came to a stop and the door opened. Blinking against the blinding sunlight she was ushered into the studio, her contemplations shoved firmly to the back of her mind. Showtime.

o-o-o-o-o-o

She had been terrified she'd failed and her chances were over. Nothing from her interview got through the government censor. Absolutely nothing. Rodney had connections that the average citizen couldn't even dream of having (even in a world where there wasn't constant monitoring by the government) and everything Samantha Carter had said was lost to oblivion. She'd wanted to slap the "told-you-so" expression right off of McKay's face, but she felt too disheartened. Too demoralized.

The zat was the worst part. When she'd woken to find the gag in her mouth she kept imagining the many ways she would strangle that asshole of an assistant. Even so, her efforts hadn't been in vain, and she'd won. She'd won and that was all that was important. Jack had told her after the multi-Carter incident that their reality was the only one of consequence. Frankly that seemed more like a Teal'c statement, but either way, it was truth as far as she was concerned. She only had enough energy for one universe.

She dropped onto her bed and closed her eyes. Inhaling, Sam tried to relax, but the rap at the door startled her. A crack of light cut in and Jack's head popped through.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry I didn't come see you after...I thought it would be best if I didn't hang around you. Reputation and all."

"It worked out. I hope," she awkwardly answered with a slight pursing of her lips.

"They won't renege on this," he assured her, closing the door behind him and rocking on his heels. "I may not be the poster boy for the military that I once was, but apparently some people still like me."

He lacked confidence as he made his way over to her. The bed dipped as he sat down and their shoulders touched in a familiar way. "She wasn't a bad person."

"Hardly good from what I hear," she replied with a shrug. She shouldn't care, but she did.

"There was this virus thing in our first year and I couldn't turn her down. Afterward there was always this thing and the whole, 'we faced death together' slant. We weren't planning on it, it just happened. Too much stress and not enough outlets."

"Except each other," she murmured with understanding. Her eyes stung. "It wasn't easy for us either."

Jack exhaled slowly. "My marriage ended and everything got too intense for you...her. She met Mc-Jackass at a dinner and then she asked for a transfer. Then one day I was captured by a snakehead, tortured, left for dead, and when I came home...the rest they say is history."

Ba'al. Her heart thudded against her chest. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

She met Jack's deep brown eyes. "I'm sorry all the same." Then, knowing that he'd never ask, she leaned over and pressed her lips to his. The desperation that reverberated back to her was astounding, the way his fingers dug into her upper arms, the force as he parted her lips, and the desire as he tasted and nipped. It was an ache that had no closure for him and one he knew never would. Suddenly he pulled back and his eyes bared his loneliness and regret.

"I need to go now," he whispered hoarsely. Not a single glance in her direction as he fled her room and Sam felt cold without his touch even if it wasn't from the man she truly missed.

Numbly she headed out towards her lab. Her equipment would be there and she'd be able to get back to Jack, _her_ Jack. Her Cam. Her Landry. Her SGC. Her Earth. Once she was far enough away this would seem like a distant nightmare. Her breathing hitched as she entered the lab. Rodney was sitting at the table with a laptop.

"New job. Your old job actually," he sighed. "Look, I've been running simulations, I'm thinking if you work with me maybe another day? Two at the most."

"Well then, sounds like we'd better get started."

So they worked. They calculated. They number crunched. She found this Rodney ate just as much as the Rodney she'd known and within an hour he already had her armed escort calling down to the commissary for food. His plate was always clean. Hers remained full. After her conversation with Jack and the realization that home was within reach, she couldn't even contemplate eating. She wasn't even sure she'd be able to keep it down.

Eighteen hours, forty-seven minutes, and ten seconds after she'd walked in, Rodney declared with a self-satisfied smirk that he'd figured it out.

"Let's do it," Sam declared, not really caring about ego or credit. It had been an accident that'd brought her here to begin with, what did it matter how she got home?

"You mean right now?"

She narrowed her gaze at him. Too much had happened in the last two weeks to stop her and he of all people should have been aware of that painful fact.

"Oh. Right. You probably want to get back to..." Rodney made a waving hand motion towards the sky... "I guess I'd hoped. I mean...I never really got to say goodbye to her."

"You two were _divorced_," she replied incredulously and then grimaced at the rather pathetic expression he was giving her. "No. Absolutely not."

"What? I didn't say anything," he protested, his eyes flitting back and forth, something he always did when he'd been had.

Sam sighed. "I'm not kissing you."

"I wasn't going to ask you to...okay, yes I was, but I'd settle for a hug," he relented. "And I...I knew."

"Knew...about..." Sam echoed and then her breathing hitched. "Oh. I mean, I heard you'd found out..."

"No. I knew before. I fell for her hard and I thought I was okay being second best. I even knew before the affair came out."

"I'm sorry," she apologized and then she rolled her eyes in frustration. "I feel like I've spent the last two weeks apologizing for her mistakes. I didn't even _make_ them and I feel responsible somehow."

Rodney reached out and touched her arm. "Hey, it wasn't an accusation. I only wanted to let you know that not everything was _her_ fault. Everyone made bad calls. I shouldn't have pursued her, not when I knew how she felt about _him_. It's that whole no man is an island thing."

She gave him a genuine smile. "Thanks."

"So..."

"No. I'm still not kissing you."

Sheepishly shrugging he responded. "Can't blame a guy for trying."

"Let's just get me home."

It took another hour for the lab to be set up, her original equipment to be returned, and for the final pieces to fall into place. Sam took position next to the device and began to run the algorithm that would let send her back home.

The light was blinding. Then it was not.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sam shivered as the adrenaline subsided and her nakedness became more readily apparent. She curled closer to Jack's chest with little desire to move from the position she was now in. He'd flown out as soon as he found out she was back and they'd barely said two words as she'd straddled him right there on her sofa. It hadn't been anything that would make it into a romance novel, but it had been decidedly average, entirely normal, completely ordinary. It was a side of her life she relished, not unlike her odd enjoyment of eating the same thing every day. Her job had enough excitement as it was.

The soft threads of a throw blanket were welcome as Jack wrapped it around her. His breathing was steady and his heartbeat sure. It was real, it was hers.

"So, no grass is greener, huh?" Jack broached.

"No," she answered succinctly. She thought about it for a second then confessed. "I'd married and divorced McKay."

There was silence for a beat.

"_Rodney_ McKay? Arrogant? So not as smart as you?" he confirmed. "Are you sure you're not making that up?"

"I wish I were," she responded, lightly tracing his bicep with her forefinger. "Landry was the President. There was no Atlantis expedition. Vala was in jail at Area 51. Cam was a drunk, paralyzed vet..."

She trailed off as the next people that came to mind were herself and Jack. That was more than she wanted to admit, far more than she wanted to tell him. It had hurt to see her lover's doppelganger on the other side. To see such despair and such regret.

"It's like a nightmare. Now that I'm back, it doesn't seem real," she finally finished.

"As far as you're concerned, it's not," he affirmed, tightening his embrace.

Pushing herself up, she met his eyes and gave him a soft smile. "We did it right."

"What?"

"This," Sam clarified, motioning between them. "We did it right."

"You're the genius, so I'll trust your assessment then," he teased and she leaned back into his chest.

It was perfect and more importantly it was _hers_. And in the end, that was all that mattered.


End file.
